The one TV show that Astronaut Scott Kelly binge watched to get through his one year in space

He took a downloaded version to space and watched the entire series twice

Scott Kelly has been the poster boy of space exploration ever since he got back from his marathon stretch at the International Space Station that lasted more than an entire calendar year between 2015 and 2016. The year-long expedition has not only been much publicised and lauded the world over, it also gave researchers and academics back on earth a clearer understanding than ever before on the mental and physical effects of spending long durations in space. Kelly wasn’t on his first tour, but it’s well known that the ISS isn’t exactly a luxury resort where you can while your time away in yoga and spa treatments. While his stay was unprecedented, the veteran astronaut who’s been travelling to the final frontier and beyond for several years and has so far done four tours knows a trick or two about surviving the infinite boredom of space travel. But Kelly recently revealed during a press interaction that the one thing that got him through his long tour in space was in fact the HBO blockbuster fantasy series Game of Thrones.

Kelly, who is currently promoting the documentary Beyond a Year in Space, which is based on his last day at the ISS and his return to Earth and events thereafter, revealed that while his mission’s mandate was primarily scientific, the free time he had was spent just the way folks in Earth do, watching downloaded shows, reading, and basically being pulled in to the world of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms.

The PBS documentary will be a follow up to the immensely popular first part titled A Year in Space that originally made Kelly the celebrity that he is now. It follows his journey back to Earth and the story behind how he adjusted back to life on the ground after spending the most number of days in space by any man in history. Speaking to reporters at an event, Kelly further revealed that he binge-watched Game of Thrones not once, but twice.

Scott Kelly’s year in space:

His marathon expedition included several scientific experiments about the human experience in space and produced some ground-breaking results. However, above all, Kelly’s primarily credited with popularising and also humanising the concept of spending time in space – something we ought to get used to especially with folks like Elon Musk working overtime to put humans on Mars. An engineer and a lifetime astronaut, the recently retired Kelly was also immensely popular for his everyday exploits in space that turned into a genuine YouTube star. Not to mention, Kelly’s selfie game was on point as well:

Several of Kelly’s videos about how everyday things and items react to zero gravity (all shot in 4K) produced some of the most spectacular and colourful imagery available on the internet. And when he wasn’t doing science or bingeing Game of Thrones, this is how Kelly spent his time in Space: